Virtualization issues may affect cost benefits

While the main reason companies are turning to virtualization is reduced costs, this may be difficult to achieve if the virtual machines are not maintained properly.
According to a recent report by IT blogger Bruce Boyers, speed between virtual machines and hardware hosts must be supported to continue receiving the benefits of the technology.

One problem companies may find themselves in involves fragmentation, which splits files into thousands or even tens of thousands of pieces. Fragmentation causes a decrease in hardware performance, as well as reliability, Boyers stated. Another issue businesses may run into is called disk bloat - a condition that shrinks virtual disks when applications or users remove data.

"The solution is virtual platform disk optimization technology which, fortunately, is now considerably advanced and available," Boyers wrote. "This solution prevents a majority of fragmentation before it even happens, resources are fully coordinated, and a compaction feature makes it possible to eliminate virtual disk 'bloat.'"

Virtualization, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses, has another benefit - data recovery. According to a report by Quorom, virtualization not only offers greater cost savings, but it helps companies recover quickly from natural disasters and security breaches.